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Back in 2000, I lost a few fingers in a construction accident and decided it was time for a career change. I've always enjoyed writing and thought I'd give it a go. My first real attempt at writing something marketable came a few years prior to my accident. I wrangled my way into a local film production in my hometown and began documenting my experiences - with the sole intent of creating a book about how I got involved in the film "Escanaba in da Moonlight.". My book: "Standin' in the Moonlight" is that story. It's not a literary masterpiece by any stretch, but it was my first attempt to write something - so it is what it is. I got the opportunity to work with Jeff Daniels and Harve Presnell. Sadly, Harve is no longer with us - he was a great guy.
I learned a lot about the difficulties of writing/formatting/selling a book from that first experience. The printed copies lingered in boxes in my garage for many years before being digitized for sale on Amazon. I had some experience in creating newspaper advertisements, so I did all the layout and formatting and brought the files to a local printer. When sales were less than I hoped for, I decided to make a PDF file of the book for sale online. I later found out that a PDF was not the format for Kindle and had to convert it to an acceptable format. Which was a small hurdle in the long learning process of creating books.
I have always been a self-taught sort of guy and eventually decided to try screenplay writing. Not long after plunging into the screenwriting process, I heard Amazon was getting into the film making business with their new Amazon Studios concept. I submitted a few scripts that went nowhere and then decided to try making a "test film" instead. Test films were essentially slide show or animation-styled versions of a screenplay. I plunged into the project hoping to stand out from the crowd with sound effects and narration over images. That test film won the first test film competition and put a hundred grand in my bank account - not a bad payday for about 200 hours of work. After that success, I've written many more screenplays and my most recent is being collaborated on with a director I met while working on that very first film. I also made another test film which did not win anything, but I hope to turn the audio track into an audiobook.
In the meantime, I continue to work on writing, learning, and sharing these experiences with others.
Peace to you my fellow dreamers.
Sincerely,
Robert Hosking
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